Philippe and Joseph Bridau are extremely different brothers. The elder, Philippe, is a superficially heroic soldier. Adored by their mother, Agathe, he is none the less a bitter figure, secretly gambling away her savings after a brief but glorious career in Napoleon’s army. His younger brother, Joseph, meanwhile, is fundamentally virtuous - yet their mother is blinded to his kindness by her disapproval of his life as an artist. Foolish and prejudiced, Agathe lives unaware that she is being cynically manipulated by-her favourite child, but will she ever discover which of her sons is truly the black sheep of the family? A novel with strong autobiographical elements, The Black Sheep is a dazzling depiction of the power of money and the cruelty of life in nineteenth-century France.

Philippe and Joseph Bridau are extremely different brothers. The elder, Philippe, is a superficially heroic soldier. Adored by their mother, Agathe, he is none the less a bitter figure, secretly gambling away her savings after a brief but glorious career in Napoleon’s army. His younger brother, Joseph, meanwhile, is fundamentally virtuous - yet their mother is blinded to his kindness by her disapproval of his life as an artist. Foolish and prejudiced, Agathe lives unaware that she is being cynically manipulated by-her favourite child, but will she ever discover which of her sons is truly the black sheep of the family? A novel with strong autobiographical elements, The Black Sheep is a dazzling depiction of the power of money and the cruelty of life in nineteenth-century France.

Donald Adamson’s translation captures the radical modernity of Balzac’s style, while the introduction places The Black Sheep in context as one of the great novels of Balzac’s renowned Comedie Humaine.

Introduction

Part One: The Two Brothers

The Descoings and the Rougets

The Bridau family

The unfortunate widows

Vocation

The great man in the family

Mariette

Philippe absconds

How a mother’s love can change for the worse

Philippe’s last acts of misconduct

Part Two: A Bachelor’s Household in the Provinces

Issoudun

The Knights of Idleness

At La Cognette’s

Flore Brazier

A horrible and vulgar story

Old Fario’s cart

The five Hochons

M axence-Machiavelli

A stab in the chest

A criminal matter

Philippe at Issoudun

Part Three: Who Will Gain the Inberitance?

A chapter which all potential legatees should study

A duel to the death

Madame Rouget

The repentance of a saintly woman

Conclusion